AION - GameForge Free2play EU - starts 28th feb.

[Arkadrel]

So tomorrow (the 28th) this MMO is doing a launch of official servers that are free2play.
And right around the corner is the 3.0 Aion update titled Promised Lands.

In case you've never heard of Aion here is a video:
(3.0 trailer's):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WtzP-y-Ua8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0t6x7Nz7BU


Its in my mind without a doubt the best free2play MMO out there.
Id like to see this MMO do well, so figoured a thread about it was in order.

If you love MMOs and have hit a dry spot (maybe didnt like Rift? WoW getting stale? ect), why not give Aion a try?

See you in Atreia.

http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/

 

[Mandres]

I hope they find success with the f2p model. I've been playing a high-rate private server and it really is a thorough and competent game.

 

[shurato]

I would be pretty excited if it wasn't for Guildwars 2 looming around the corner....

The 3.0 update looks pretty amazing graphics wise. All I ever heard about AION though is that it was an extreme grindfest and end game was lacking.

 

[Generator]

I've heard the same. The models and armor art has always been pretty exceptional compared to other games. The classes in their combat look like ass. Though the ranger looks amazing.

 

[Craig234]

I own the retail game, haven't installed it yet, wonder what benefits that will have.

 

[imaheadcase]

I stopped playing this 3 months after release. The bots was just out of control.

To ad insult to injury they said they was working on it..yet the top people on the server was bots. They also limited the amount of cheating reports for each account 3 every day lol. The top guild had 300+ BOTS in it. Pretty pathetic company.

I think more bots was on the server than players.

 

[Arkadrel]

I own the retail game, haven't installed it yet, wonder what benefits that will have.

Install from the CD saves you downloading the first 12gb the game takes up.
*IF* you had a account on a NCsoft server you could transfer that to the GF ones, and get veteran status.

After that, you need to download a few patches which will put it around 19gb.


@shurato
The quest system is fun, eventually you run out. Which will just force you to get exp in otherways, doesnt mean you have to go grind 1,000,000 monsters without a quest reward for doing so just to level up (and really is that so bad? farming ingredients for a craft ect your gonna be doing something simular anyways, in any MMO).

Endgame looks solid now, though alot of people complained about it when Aion was first out, thats been awhile though, things change.

@imaheadcase
target person and type /reportautohunting and hit enter.

Also cant help but think your exagerating quite a bit there.
Im sure bot use is even worse in games like WoW.

 

[imaheadcase]

Yah that was limited to 3 times per account to report bots at time of release.

I was not exaggerating at all. Most areas was camped by bots, soon as mob spawned they would stand up and all run to it.

They literally had guilds just made up of bots. spamming non-stop.

10 of us went to game, 10 of us left after 3 months.

You could report one..get message "We are looking into it" then then same person a week later is still botting..but now higher level then you, plus in a guild with more bots.

It was pretty pathetic. Some morning when i would play i would run just into bots in game. lol

 

[VashHT]

Yeah the game had a huge problem with bots but it was still pretty fun, I got up to level 35 or so before I quit my templar, I'll probabl reinstall it just to see how the 3.0 patch turned out.

 

[Markbnj]

I played it for a few months at release, and yeah the biggest issue by far was the number of gold seller bots, followed by the overly complicated nature of PvP goals in the void, or whatever they called that central contested space between the shards. Overall I really liked the flying mechanic, and the world was beautiful.

 

[TechBoyJK]

still have to buy the game? or is DL free too?

 

[Elcs]

Is this worth downloading for a muck around for a few days/weeks and gaze deeply into the graphical glory?

 

[shurato]

Hmm... I think i'm going to have to give it a try...it's free after all. The website must be getting hammered. Can't even load the site. Not a good sign.

 

[Mandres]

Yea, the bot problem was a major black eye on the game in the first month. Basically, all the Koreans had already been playing for 2 years and were well familiar with how to bot and exploit. When the NA release came about they brought all that shit with them and cheated right up to level cap within a couple of weeks, cornering the markets for valuable items and dominating the servers. While the legitimate players were slogging through the month(s) long grind to level, the cheaters prospered and NCSoft did nothing. By the time they got some protections in place it was way too late.

Aion is legitimately an amazing game though. It's worth exploring for free, with the understanding that you are years behind the competitive player base and will never catch up. Which kinda sucks since it's so heavily PvP focused...

 

[Zenoth]

I wonder why so many ex-subscription based MMORPGs are going for the F2P micro-transaction based model. Is it simply because all of them just weren't financially viable/profitable enough as subscription-based? Or is it because World of WarCraft stumps them all and reduces them all to a forced F2P model, or otherwise they'd just all go bankrupt or something?

Lately I've seen the following MMORPGs going F2P from a previous subscription-based model:

º EverQuest II
º DC Universe Online
º Champions Online
º City of Heroes
º Lord of the Rings Online

There's surely many more I'm not thinking of right now. I just wonder if the F2P model is just preferable, or if going F2P means (for most of them, if not all of them) saving themselves from going poof and closing their servers entirely. In any case, I might take a look at AION eventually, I usually give a try to most F2P MMORPGs out there for the sake of trying them out and perhaps finding a few unknown jewels (unknown to me that is). I do really like DC Universe Online for instance, and had it never been F2P I wouldn't have bothered ever trying it out, but I like it and I subscribed to it for a month even though it's F2P (but of course, you can still subscribe and have more features).

 

[Craig234]

I wonder why so many ex-subscription based MMORPGs are going for the F2P micro-transaction based model. Is it simply because all of them just weren't financially viable/profitable enough as subscription-based? Or is it because World of WarCraft stumps them all and reduces them all to a forced F2P model, or otherwise they'd just all go bankrupt or something?

Lately I've seen the following MMORPGs going F2P from a previous subscription-based model:

º EverQuest II
º DC Universe Online
º Champions Online
º City of Heroes
º Lord of the Rings Online

There's surely many more I'm not thinking of right now. I just wonder if the F2P model is just preferable, or if going F2P means (for most of them, if not all of them) saving themselves from going poof and closing their servers entirely. In any case, I might take a look at AION eventually, I usually give a try to most F2P MMORPGs out there for the sake of trying them out and perhaps finding a few unknown jewels (unknown to me that is). I do really like DC Universe Online for instance, and had it never been F2P I wouldn't have bothered ever trying it out, but I like it and I subscribed to it for a month even though it's F2P (but of course, you can still subscribe and have more features).

I'll mention two factors based on speculation:

1. The first game to go 'F2P' has a huge advantage. All the other games see many subscribers leap to it as free.

This creates competitive pressure to also go 'F2P', which sees less and less benefit to the publisher, as they are now doing it 'just to compete', but not getting a big advantage.

This is the 'natural market cycle of competition' - one which can threaten a lot of publishers, just as Amazon helped lead to 90% of independant bookstores closing.

2. Many games may well be more profitable as 'F2P', while others may not. It has to do with balancing the free carrots to bring people, and tempting them to pay for more content.

Some are 'built from the ground up' as F2P, like Heroes of Might Magic Online and Age of Empires Online, while others are having to shift from a subscription.

Funny enough, the ones 'built F2P' haven't grabbed me a lot, except for World of Tanks.

I think part of the issue is just 'player mindset' about spending.

It's a bit like DLC - customers just didn't value that much 'free new content' to justify paying a higher initial price, or expansions, as much as they'd pay for DLC.

So, DLC is the new normal, $5 here, $10 there, $15 for something else, and it makes a lot more money.

But it also has a sort of corrupting effect on the games, where players have to be pulled in and teased hugely to pay money, which can be unpleasant.

I tried 'Free Realms', and everywhere you turn, 'oh this activity needs premium, oh you can only do the basic part of this', etc., but I heard it's making good money.

 

[shurato]

Ok must of misread this post... didn't realize it was free to play for EU. Had a devil of a time activating my free to play account and finally when I got that working realized I only have european servers to choose from. meh....

 

[shurato]

So I ended up having to re-download the game again and registered for the free trial in North America. From what I gather, the free trial is extended until the spring?

At any rate...after a few days, I'm a level 14 gladiator on Elyos side. I say from my own experience, AION in my initial impression overall is like a cross between FFXI, WoW, and Rift. So essentially just another generic MMO experience so far. Have to admit I really dig the character art style though.

Quests are about as bad as you can get which is par for the course... kill 10 of these, or go talk to this person then that person then return to this person type garbage.

 

[Mandres]

AION in my initial impression overall is like a cross between FFXI, WoW, and Rift.

For what it's worth it's four years old now, so well before Rift, but you're not wrong. It's basically a prettier version of WoW with a stronger PvP focus and a dubious "flying" mechanic.

It's probably most correct to say it's "Lineage II with WoW-style questing".

 

[brandonb]

So I ended up having to re-download the game again and registered for the free trial in North America. From what I gather, the free trial is extended until the spring?

At any rate...after a few days, I'm a level 14 gladiator on Elyos side. I say from my own experience, AION in my initial impression overall is like a cross between FFXI, WoW, and Rift. So essentially just another generic MMO experience so far. Have to admit I really dig the character art style though.

Quests are about as bad as you can get which is par for the course... kill 10 of these, or go talk to this person then that person then return to this person type garbage.

Once you get to 25 things change. The thing I liked most about Aion is that you received PVP quests. In which you had to go through a Rift to the Asmodian side (their lands.) Then do quests while being hunted down by them, and then you got great rewards for completing the quest. The Rifts would only appear every once in awhile and would disappear after 25 or so people went through the portal. So you had to usually find a group and drop a group totem (a respawn point that everybody in the group could temporarly respawn to during death), and that thing would go poof after a certain amount of respawns. And if the Asmodians found it, they could camp it and kill you when you respawn, or just kill the totem. So you usually went through the rift, and spend a good chunk of time just trying to find a good hiding spot for the Totem away from the activity. Then after you get established, you'd have to hunt through the world, defending against players while doing PVE type quests in their areas.

That was fun. The rest of the game was not so much fun, as it was the typical MMO grinding of quest hubs + instanced dungeons.